20080226

Now, a Michigan spot has topped that burger by 11 pounds and given it an appropriate name: the “Absolutely Ridiculous Burger.”

The new burger king comes from Mallie's Sports Bar in Detroit's Southgate area. It's 134 pounds, comes on a 50-pound bun, is topped with bacon and cheese, takes 12 hours to make -- after giving 24-hour notice -- and goes for $350. No word at this point on what beverage the establishment will recommend to help wash down the monster.

It will take some time before the Guinness Book of World Records, arbitor of all such ludicrous but oddly fascinating claims, verifies the burger project. Meanwhile, pub owner Steve Mallie, 39, says he's confident that accolade will easily come through.

The 2 1/2-year-old pub's menu notes, "There is ABSOLUTELY no reason for this burger but if you order it, we'll make it, and you figure out what to do with it!"

The man who makes the whopper, which was four months in the planning, is chef Arthur Laramie. In an interview with The Detroit News, he said, "The record kept changing on us and getting higher, so we figured lets just shoot for the moon and blow the record away. This one is going to be hard to beat."ON THE WEB• Detroit hamburger restaurants• Active Diner in Detroit• Dowd's Guides

ABOUT THIS SITE

"Taste for Travel" is a specialized travel site founded in 1993 as a service of Dowd's Guides. It was created by editor & publisher William M. Dowd, a veteran print and online journalist and editor. You can e-mail him here.